


something missing, something gone

by Verdantia



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, Hatake Kakashi Has Issues, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, mayyyybeeee a, no promises
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-03
Updated: 2021-03-22
Packaged: 2021-04-12 21:01:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21663973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verdantia/pseuds/Verdantia
Summary: He doesn’t see Obito’s clenched fists and helpless anguish. He doesn’t feel Rin’s hand leave his shoulder as she steps back in shock. He doesn’t see Minato’s hurt and horror.He.		                justscreams, and incoherently, fervently hopes that the main characters of his nightmares will have vanished when he wakes. (But he knows they won’t.)
Comments: 36
Kudos: 379





	1. Chapter 1

“_Stay away from me!_” He shouted, voice hoarse with grief and anger. “_Stay away!_”

All three flinched back as if scalded. “I… Kakashi-kun?” Minato began, uncertainty and hurt easily detectable.

Kakashi wasn’t going anywhere. He was thoroughly immobilized, caught in the seal trap that Minato had painstakingly crafted, tightly secured in hasty rope bindings. There is only one way for him to escape this, only one. Just one.

He takes a deep breath and begins the seal-less manipulation of the standard suicide jutsu that every ANBU learns before being deployed outside the village. He can’t – he can’t do it again. He can’t deal with – with killing Rin, with watching as his sensei’s limp body is carried through the village, with the grief and betrayal of Obito-as-Tobi. He’s the common factor. He’s the reason – he’s the reason that everything went wrong, and he won’t let it happen again. If he can’t stay away from them, if he can’t keep himself from- from…

He can’t screw everything up if he’s dead.

He can’t kill Rin if he’s dead.

He can’t watch Obito destroy the village if he’s dead.

He can’t watch as Naruto gives him one last sunshine smile before dying if he dies first.

Hatake Kakashi is almost finished with the jutsu, he can feel it begin to compress his chakra coils, he is about to take a deep breath and be _done_

when Minato flashes forward and slams a high-level chakra suppression seal on his forehead. The man stands there for a second, panting slightly in the adrenaline rush and eyes wide as his brain catches up to his instincts. “Kakashi – you. You just – “ he breaks off, and glances at Rin and Obito. The internal debate is obvious but all too short. “You just tried to commit _suicide_,” the man concludes grimly, and Kakashi can’t ignore the absolute betrayal on his teammates’ faces, so he closes his eyes.

“Go away,” he whispers. “Go away, go away, go away,” and there is moisture in his eyes, how did that happen, but it doesn’t matter because he can feel Rin’s warm, comforting hand on his shoulder and Hatake Kakashi_ screams._

He doesn’t see Obito’s clenched fists and helpless anguish. He doesn’t feel Rin’s hand leave his shoulder as she steps back in shock. He doesn’t see Minato’s hurt and horror.

He just 

screams, and incoherently, fervently hopes that the main characters of his nightmares will have vanished when he wakes. (_But he knows they won’t.)_

_\-------------- _

He opens his eyes. There is no sleepy blinking, no indolent yawn. His eyes are closed, and then they are open. Kakashi wishes everything were so simple.

He takes stock of his surroundings – he is on a bed, comfortably arranged under light blankets. The surrounding room is open but friendly. A beige armchair is out of the way in the corner, vague artwork of forests and mountains hung on the walls. There is a single window, locked securely but curtains thrown wide open. He gets up. Out the window he can see what seems to be a small backyard training field, fence and hedges providing privacy.

“You’ve been asleep for three days, you know.”

Kakashi’s heart suddenly beats faster, chest tightening. The jolt of adrenaline sears through his body and settles behind his eyes. He finds his gaze locked on the backyard, eyes desperately sliding away from any attempt to look at the source of the voice. It is familiar. It is too familiar. It sends awful pangs of despair and grief shivering down his spine.

“Kakashi-kun.”

He can’t breathe. He can’t breathe. His lungs gasp uselessly and his throat closes and suddenly he his on his knees on the wooden flooring. He tries to concentrate on the cool texture of the wood but it isn’t working and he can’t breathe. Dimly he registers a pair of warm arms wrapping firmly around him, blond hair (blond? How does he know that he didn’t look _he didn’t look) _brushing his shoulder. His mind tears in two, wanting to desperately hold onto the embrace and equally desperately wanting to _get out get out get out_. His thoughts spiral out into a frantic scramble and then dissolve into blackness.

\--------------

He wakes up, and does not open his eyes. There is a tingling feeling nudging at his instincts, and like all competent shinobi he knows very well that sometimes pretending to be asleep is a necessary precaution. Subtly, slightly, he twitches his toes and then his fingers. He isn’t restrained. That doesn’t preclude being captive somewhere, but he can feel sunlight across his eyelids and a softness under his back. The vague ammonia-and-detergent scent in the air decides it.

He’s in the hospital. Now that he concentrates, he can faintly feel the irritation of an IV in the back of his hand. Ergh. He hopes he hasn’t been here long enough to need a catheter. For an apathetic career shinobi, he hates those with an oddly irrational passion.

There is a ringing sound in his ears, and Kakashi realizes that he can hear voices.

“No, and I’m not going to tell you again, Minato. You can’t see him. For one thing, any stimuli are going to have to be _very carefully _introduced until we know what’s causing this. It’s not physical, or at least the source of it isn’t. It’s psychological. Your student he may be, but he’s also a jounin who is clearly not… fully mentally present. There are protocols for this, and no matter how much you argue with me I’m not going to let you break them just to satisfy your guilty conscious.”

“Tsunade – “

“Don’t Tsunade me. You’re not seeing him, or more accurately he’s not seeing you, until he’s been cleared for visitation with non-medical personnel. Stop fighting me on this or I’m kicking you out of my hospital altogether and you won’t get to see him at all.”

There is silence, for a moment. Kakashi tries to focus on the implications of the words – the name Tsunade feels familiar, secure, but the name Minato repeats over and over in his head and fills up the background of his thoughts. He can’t – can’t remember. Why… it feels so important. What –

[what he doesn’t hear: Minato mentioning, pained, “He tried to commit suicide, Tsunade. Please.” And her being altogether unmoved.]

He’s jolted out of the spiral of panic by sound of the door opening, and despite himself his eyes snap open and dart over to see a woman wearing a white doctor’s coat enter the room. Her steps are brisk, shoes clacking purposefully on the hospital tile. Despite this, her movements are… not slow, precisely, but smooth and practiced. Measured, in an obviously telegraphed way. He thinks this is probably carefully calculated not to set off any paranoid shinobi instincts, and he can’t deny that it’s working. Or maybe it’s just the odd familiarity he has with her name – Kakashi is almost completely certain that this is the “Tsunade” he heard arguing outside his door.

She settles in a chair a couple feet from his bed. Less threatening than remaining standing, he notes, feeling suddenly vulnerable lying prone in the hospital bed. “Hatake-kun,” she begins. “Do you know who I am?”

Kakashi opens his mouth and finds that no words will come out. He stares at her awkwardly for a moment, wide-eyed in surprise. He works his jaw, but for some reason, he just. Can’t speak.

She nods at him, the gesture reassuring. “That’s fine if you can’t answer vocally. Try signing. Do you know who I am?”

He lifts his hands up to sign her name – and instead of spelling it out like he expects his fingers twist into a clearly personalized gesture that combines the signs for “Fourth” and “Hokage”. He freezes, and then his hands drop awkwardly back onto his lap.

Tsunade blinks at him. If she is shocked or surprised or even realizes what he just did, no hint of it flashes across her face. “Try again.”

He does, and manages to spell out [T-S-U-N-A-D-E] without any more trouble.

She nods, face still blank in its neutrality. “That’s my name.” He tries not to fidget under the weight of her assessing gaze. “But do you know who I am?”

[NO], he signs after some thought. He could guess, she’s clearly a doctor, and has some standing if she won whatever that argument before was. But that’s not what she’s asking, and he knows it. She wants to know if he recognizes her. He doesn’t. He doesn’t. Unbidden, anxious uncertainty flashes across his face. The heart rate monitor spikes.

She merely nods again. “That’s fine. Do you know who you are?”

[H-A-T-A-K-E K-A-K-A-S-H-I], he spells, and then makes the personal sign for his name for good measure. [SHINOBI], He adds, then hesitates. [JOUNIN].

“Good. Do you know where you are?”

[HOSPITAL], he signs. Except – while he’s pretty certain by this point that it is, indeed, a hospital, he has no idea what hospital or where he actually is. A glance out the window reveals an empty interior courtyard, trees tall and green-leafed. Unwittingly his eyes settle on the leaves and a spike of pain makes him tear his gaze away. [DON’T KNOW WHERE HOSPITAL].

Another nod. “That’s fine. You heard me talking outside the door. Did you recognize the voice of the man I was talking to?”

There’s some expectation there, something he can’t quite figure out, and he defensively signs, [M-I-N-A-T-O]. Then, when she doesn’t say anything in response, he grudgingly admits, [NO].

“That’s fine. Do you remember how you got here? Or what happened leading up to it?”

[NO.]

Tsunade takes a deep breath, holds it, and lets it out. “That’s fine. I’m going to step outside for a minute. Please don’t try to get out of bed – there are chakra seals on the sides that will prevent you from crossing the edges of the mattress, and I’ve heard it can be quite disconcerting to smash your nose against an invisible wall. Likewise, your vitals are currently tied to a seal on my skin, and will alert me immediately if they go out of range. So – no funny business.” She stands up. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

Her movements are just as measured leaving the room as they were entering, and then Kakashi is left alone again. A sudden sense of loss and grief threatens to swallow him whole – alone, alone, he is _alone _again, no no no – he breathes through it and the sensation passes.

It is then that he realizes – he doesn’t remember _anything. _He knows... his name. That he’s a shinobi. A jounin, apparently.

That’s it. He can’t – he doesn’t remember who his family is, who is friends are, what his childhood was like or what his – apartment? – looks like. He feels… hollow. Empty, guts carved out and discarded.

_What happened to me?_


	2. respite for the weary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> you really expected Kakashi of all people to stay in a hospital? pff no. He escaped somehow and got here somewhere. Beats me how. He's Kakashi.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> arrright i skipped... some stuff. a lotta stuff. but that's okay! because just like Rin, I am two drinks in and two sheets t o the wind lol. i'll go back and fill it in later. or not. I dunno. i'm not that disciplined of a writer.

“Do you need help, young man?” Comes a creaky, wobbly old voice, gnarled and rough like the bark of the towering trees in the forest. Kakashi flinches, a full-body recoil that he immediately hates himself for. A pattern echoes in the back of his mind. “Shinobi rules! Shinobi rules! Good shinobi do not show weakness”, it chastises. He gets caught up in the spiral for a minute – if he can just – remember where - 

“Young man. Can you hear me? These old bones don’t have forever left in them, you know!”

Finally he blinks. He is staring at - a creek. The water dapples with the sunlight filtering through the forest, silvery glints across the running water. Tiny minnows wiggle and dance in the shallows, water strider bugs flit across the surface. There is – green. Green everywhere, moss and baby ferns and underbrush. A thicket of salmonberries lie across the water, summer-bright with orange and red and purple. Something in him settles, dissipates. One hand dips into the water. It is cool and clear against his skin.

He turns – and there is the old woman, hunched with age and face creased with smile lines. She gives him a soft, sad look, and the warmth in her eyes almost topples him back into the creek. “Hello, dear,” is all she says this time, and then she waits, patiently.

Kakashi’s eyes scan every inch of her – for threat, for weapons – then the surroundings. It takes him an embarrassingly long time – he goes over everything once, twice, then thrice. It doesn’t seem possible, something is screaming at him, still, and has been screaming since he woke up the first time, but

There is no danger. No weapons, no traps, no physical threat, no deception.

Just an old woman. And a forest empty of human life.

He opens his mouth to speak, unsure if he even can. To his relief he is able to eke out his question, voice almost as creaky as the elder’s. “Where am I?” He asks.

Her soft, sad smile widens slightly, an air of amusement tinging her countenance. “Oh, my dear boy,” she says, unhelpfully. “the kami do see fit to challenge me, don’t they.”

Kakashi blinks at her, nonplussed. His bewilderment grows when a chorus of birdsong starts in the wood – he whips around, searching, seeking, danger? Enemy signals? But at his reaction it abruptly quiets down.

“Yes, yes, I know” the old woman chides, seemingly to thin air. Then she turns to him again – “Come with me,” is all she says. And somehow, somehow – he follows.

[Kakashi is in the summoning realm of small birds – swallows, finches, sparrows. It is a temporary respite, but while he is here, nothing shall harm him.]

_Konoha_

Minato-sensei looks drained – pale, wan, and defeated. The dark bags under his eyes are prominent and his usually indomitable spirit is dampened. For the first time, Rin thinks that – maybe everything _isn’t_ going to be okay, after all. In many ways she is still a child, looking up to the adults she respects and admires and has utter, complete faith in them to handle bad situations. But she looks at Minato and reads the despair in his countenance like any decent shinobi would, and

considers – maybe they won’t ever see Kakashi again. Maybe he’s dead, or so broken that even Minato-sensei can’t fix him. It’s so, so, selfish of her but after months of wondering, and heartache, and following false leads that were so heart-wrenching in their failure – after months of painful hope, she thinks, just maybe… that she’s ready to give up. She’s so tired, and Minato-sensei looks so tired. Maybe it’s okay, to let Kakashi-kun go. He’ll be a cherished memory in their hearts, and they can move on with their lives and start living again without being haunted by his specter in the corner of their eyes. Obito arrives just as she opens her mouth to speak, hesitant, small, “Sensei… do you maybe think that – “

“So we’re going after him, right?” Comes Obito’s voice, loud and brash and bold. “He’s not getting away this time now that we’ve found him!”

If anything Minato looks somehow _more _tired. “Obito-kun, I…” He hesitates, and Rin can see the conflict on his face. She _knows_, suddenly, that he was thinking the same as her, and even though it was her very own thoughts she feels suddenly betrayed. _He can’t just _give up, the thought arises, and repeats, _We can’t just give up!_

An odd resolve washes over her then, cool liquid filling her up from her toes to her head. “Sensei,” she says, “I’m not giving up on him. We’ve found him once. We can find him again. And this time, we’ll bring him home, and we’ll fix him.” Even as the words come out of her mouth she knows they sound hopelessly naïve – there’s no guarantee they can bring Kakashi home. There’s even less of one that they can fix him. Shinobi are shinobi – dangerous, volatile creatures wearing a human skin. The ones that lose their human skin – sometimes, there’s no getting it back. Kakashi as they know him is more than likely gone forever and never coming back. But yet – but yet –

“Yeah!” Obito enthuses. “Those who abandon their comrades are worse than trash, and we’re no trash! We’re bringing him home for good, whether he likes it or not!”

* * *

She hands him an odd contraption – bulky, heavy, rectangular. He takes it reluctantly, cautiously, and ponders how fast he could seallessly kawarimi himself with something outside the dwelling if the object turned out to be explosive. His fingers dance over it – mapping, cataloguing, searching for hidden danger. There is a seam that he cautiously pries open, only to see an empty slot. There is a circular piece of glass, but there appear to be no seals etched upon its surface. Finally, he hands it back to her, and watches as she carefully puts some sort of thin, rolled up sheet inside the slot. To his surprise, she then hands it back to him again. “What is this?” He asks, voice only a little rough.

She smiles. “A camera. Today, your task is to look through the forest and find a leaf that you… like. You can search any amount or part of the forest that you like. Find a leaf that you like, and then point the glass circle at it and press this button down. Then bring the camera back to me.”

He stares at her. “That I… that I like?” She watches him and the lost expression on his face, watches how it lingers before some automatic shutter draws over his eyes. “Shinobi rule number 47. Shinobi do not – “

“Ap-bap!” She shushes him, a finger in front of his lips. “Today you are not a shinobi. Today, you are my assistant, and nothing else. And this is the task I have for you.”

He blinks. Pauses. “…Okay.” His tone is flat, monotone.

She takes no offense and only smiles again, eyes crinkling with genuine warmth. “Thank you. Now, please – go, start looking.”

He gives her the barest of nods, and then leaps out the window.

When she is sure he is gone, the birds chirping a fluid duet of his movements to her old ears, her smile fades. “Oh, my boy. We have a long way to go, don’t we.”

The birdsong continues, cheerful.

* * *

They return from their mission. There’s not much to be said about it – at least, not much that they _want _to talk about. It was a mission. Violence happened, as was wont to do with shinobi missions. The end.

More importantly, though – the trail for Kakashi has grown cold. There is not a single trace of rumor, not a single trace of even the barest murmurings of his whereabouts or his doings. It is as if he vanished off the face of the Earth, and knowing what they know – well.

They arrive back at Konoha, passing through the city gates, and Minato turns to them. “You’re chunin,” he says. “You’re adults,” he says. “Have you had your first drink yet?”

Rin and Obito stare at him, even through their exhaustion and greyed-out feelings managing to exchange a bewildered look with each other. Minato sees it and flushes red despite his own bone-deep exhaustion. “I mean,” he tries again, “It might come up on a mission – better to become familiar earlier than later.” They watch him summon up a smile, the corners of his mouth lifting up millimeter by painful millimeter. The smile is for their sake, though, so they don’t comment. “Don’t worry, I’ll be there to supervise and record any embarrassing moments for posterity.”

“Sensei!” Obito squawks, and for a brief moment, Rin thinks, everything feels okay again.

Later that night, she regrets the sense of security that moment gave her. Minato took them to a shinobi bar, and though she can feel the amused glances on her back, she pays them no mind. She tries a hard cider – and to her surprise, it tastes _good, _not bitter at all. So she has another. And then… “Sensei!” she exclaims, giggling. “Look! I can flap my arms – like a bird, look look look hehehehe”, and it is just so _amusing _to wiggle her arms up and down, up and down. The twenty percent of her brain that is still operating logically knows she will regret this in the morning – but the other eighty percent overrules it with a pumped up, _worth it! Wooooooooooo! _Her limbs are loose and the world is slow and fuzzy but in such an _amusing _way and she somehow manages to realize, _ahhh. So this is why shinobi drink._

_It takes the world away and makes it small._

And then her capacity for profound thought deserts her and her focus switches – _hey _I’m _small, what if I … what if…. _“Heyyyyy Minator-senSEI!” she chirps, swaying slightly – not because she can’t sit up, but because it’s kind of a fun feeling, back and forth and back. “What if – why not – when is – oh, hahahha.”

The hangover she wakes up with is _not _so amusing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [and that's when author stopped writing because buzzzzzzz]
> 
> for the record I do NOT endorse underage drinking. drink when age. don't drink underage. i'm not even a hypocrte, i'm [age censored but it's above 21 i prommmmmise] ! huzzahhhhhh. slso for the record, hangovers don't exist. just drink. water. lots of water. before you wake up. while you're dinking I mean. oh and be young. that helps too. youong people don't need braincells right? nope. nope they don't.

**Author's Note:**

> as you can see, we did not start in the beginning of this idea (really, really not the beginning, heck). why am i posting it? your guess is as good as mine.


End file.
